Residency of the Ancianos

Comarapa. A village with just a hand full of streets, in the middle of the mountains, with air as fresh as the green flora and fauna of the valleys, and social institutions directed and maintained beautiful by the Catholic nuns. To describe sounds, feelings, smells, and the many wrinkles of an “ancianito” (as they say in Spanish) – an old person´s – face takes much careful thought and words chosen with love. I spent just one morning in a homeless shelter for older people, a residency and home for 40 persons. I was astonished to see that in a small village like Comarapa, the residency, kindergarten and preschool are so well kept, very modern and most of all, full of lovely people that care for the residents and children.

Backing up just a bit in the timeline of the little weekend trip here – we went to Comarapa as a group, almost all of the new volunteers from my organization went, meaning that we ended up with 20 people, mostly blonds and red heads :D. For me, it was very interesting to get to know the new group, as my group had left in September and I had not gotten a chance to meet all of the newbies. I like the way they work together as a group, not just because there is team spirit but because not one of the volunteers seemed to be overly active nor inactive. As individuals, it was interesting to see how they each still have a journey to go, obviously from my senior perspective of having been in Bolivia for more than a year heheheh, but I also observed that overall, they have very quickly gotten the hang of things here, details like everything being more laid back in Bolivia, with a positive and negative aspect, like the education that´s upside down, and the lack of structure in some projects where – from a “German” point of view there should be a structure. Quite obviously, many of these details cause frustration at first, but it is exactly dealing with this frustration that makes a person grow, inside and out. Because solving a problem once boost the self esteem to solve further problems with more patience and knowledge, which in turn means a more positive charisma. Apart from that, I immediately felt welcomed into the group, something very positive for me J

Back to the ancianitos. Upon entering the residence, you could feel the love that these, otherwise quite helpless people, received. The nuns that run the residency explained to us that most of the residents lived on the streets before, or don´t have any relatives that can take care of them. To explain this a bit, it is absolutely normal not only in Bolivia, as I understand, but in all of Latin America that one, the children live with their parents most of their lives if they don´t move to another city, and two, the kids then take care of their parents in return, once they reach a respectable age.  The other day I was looking up a few facts about Bolivia, just for the sake of freshening up my background info, and found out that the life expectancy lies at 65 years for men and 67 for women. Not knowing exactly how old “our” ancianitos were, I would guess that most of them have already passed their 70s. Sadly, most of them also have some sort of disability, but I will go into detail that later. The residency in itself radiates peace. With a big patio and balconies all along the second floor overlooking the patio, light filled the whole space. Looking up, all you could see was blue skies, and not one cloud. The white walls were covered with red flowers painted on in a few places. All along the patio, benches lined the hallway for the ancianitos to take a seat and admire, if not the sky, the flowers, and if not the flower, to chat with the other residents. To me, the whole place seemed like a paradise to live. Nurses took care of the flowers, of bathing the residents, of cooking lunch, and of then serving lunch and help the ancianitos with difficulties eat.

A group of ten volunteers, we were asked to simply talk with the ancianitos, to give them a chance to relate to us, and to feel our company. I sat down next to a woman who was tying together little patches of cloth, supposedly to put inside her breast pocket, but I am not sure for what exactly these little bundles. I like to believe that they are for good luck, but maybe that´s idealistic to think.  Even though it was at times hard to understand what the old lady was telling me (I sadly can´t even remember her name because I hardly understood it) I feel that for her it was important to talk to someone, even if only about the simple things in life. After about twenty minutes of talking to her, she even confessed to me that she missed her old bed and that she was sad because she does not have family that could take care of her. She started crying then, which touched me endlessly. I only once before had seen a person – better said stranger to me – cry in Bolivia. Since it´s something hard to take to see an old women cry, I told her softly that whenever she feels sad she should look at the red flowers painted on the wall and remember that life is too short to be sad.

Another very memorable moment for me was to talk to a woman, a bit younger than the first, who had Parkinson I think. Even though her whole body was shaking and every word pronounced was like swallowing a marble just backwards, she had a very special and catchy way of telling her stories. She told me something about her life before coming to the residency, I assume a time when she was still younger. She seemed so touched by our visit that she started giving hugs to everyone; an amazing person with a glow that she will hopefully never lose.

Among the other residents, there were two men, friends, who had such chemistry that it made them seem impossible to separate. They made jokes and laughed together as if they had known each other all life long, and maybe they had, but one told me that he had just recently come to the residency, while the other had been there for a year already!

Two more noteworthy women in the residency are, first, a woman who would not recline to offer me half of her fried egg that she had gotten served for lunch. Even though I told her over and over that I had already eaten, I had to eat half of her egg anyway. How sweet. The other woman was mute and talked with her hands. It was impressive how she managed to express herself and how emotional she talked to us. I´m pretty sure that she wanted me to give her my teeth because she had lost hers. Hihih. When I started taking pictures, she complained that there was no light that flashed (the flash)!! What energy and what happiness. Overall, that´s something that I love about the ancianitos - they were all so peaceful and happy, if not always, at least for moments, seconds.

Another character was a man who loved to shake people´s hands. It seemed to make him incredibly happy to share just this moment with people.

The pictures that I took of the ancianos are all special to me. I feel like I was able to bond with the people, if only for the blink of an eye, or the click of a camera. I felt like myself talking to the people, and it was amazing to see the people laugh. I am grateful for this experience.